Co-defendant Andrew Price, 27, of Tan y Marian at Dyserth, admitted non dwelling burglaries and handling stolen vehicles and received a 32-month prison sentence, with an additional three months from a previous suspended sentence.

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February

Hannah Turtle

The 22-year-old mum was jailed after poisoning and murdering her baby son James.

Turtle had denied murder, three charges of ill-treatment and two charges of administering James with her own anti-depression medication in his milk.

She dramatically changed her plea mid-way through the trial, admitting all charges. Turtle accepted she stopped him breathing on three occasions within a 10-day period.

It was the third episode which led to his death. He suffered brain damage from a devastating lack of oxygen and blood, and died in hospital on June 13, aged just 58 days old.

Mr Justice Clive Lewis, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said the 22-year-old, described as “pure evil” by the baby’s grandmother, suffered from a personality disorder which reduced her culpability.

Turtle will have to serve a minimum of 14 years and nine months years before she can apply for parole. She also received six months for cruelty and 12 months for administering a noxious substance, to be served concurrently.

Andrew Crowther

David Andrew Crowther, 36, from the Colwyn Bay area, abused the girl, who was aged less than 13 years of age at the time, for more than a year between 2016 and 2017.

He warned her not to tell anyone but the girl told her mother last summer.

The police were alerted and Crowther was arrested.

Crowther denied the allegations claiming none of what the girl told detectives was true. He also denied having a sexual interest in children and could not explain how police technical experts found search terms indicative of the sexual abuse of youngsters on his phone.

He was handed a for 17 year sentence. In addition to the jail term he must spend an additional 12 months on extended licence.

Crowther was also made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and his name will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.

Former Wales international Mark Aizlewood, 58, from Aberdare, Mid Glamorgan, and Paul Sugrue, 56, from Cardiff - whose past clubs include Manchester City, Middlesbrough and Cardiff City - had promised to help youngsters gain an NVQ in activity leadership.

They told colleges across the country they would provide full-time training in football coaching as well as work experience and a £95 weekly stipend to 3,800 students.

But in reality, hundreds of the students on their books did not even exist, many lived at the opposite end of the country from the scheme, while others were doing just two to three hours of study a week.

Earlier this month, Aizlewood was convicted of one count and Sugrue of two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation by offering the non-existent apprenticeships through their firm Luis Michael Training Ltd.

Aizlewood was sentenced to six years, while Sugrue was sentenced to seven years in prison.

John Kenny was sentenced to four years, four months, Lewis and Baldock both received six years.

Howard Jones, 28, of no fixed abode, and Gerwyn Bailey, 27, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, MDMA, ketamine, with Bailey also pleading guilty to a cannabis supply charge.

Jones was jailed for six years and eight months and Bailey for eight years.

Thomas Haywood and Zak Corbett

Thomas Haywood and Zak Corbett were wearing masks when they held up the village store, terrifying owners Steve and Anwen Pye.

Zak Corbett

Judge David Hale spoke of his “anger and disgust” at the robbery, but praised the “tenacity and bravery” of the owners of the post office in Rhosybol, Anglesey.

Corbett, of no fixed address, who had been jailed for previous robberies and had wielded the crowbar, was sent to prison for 12 years with an extended licence period of three years, and Haywood, of Tynygongl, Anglesey , got eight years and four months.

Judge Rhys Rowlands, sitting at Caernarfon Crown Court, told brothers Chad and Brad Daniels: “It is absolutely appalling that a thoroughly decent man, who works all hours in marked contrast to you, should be attacked.”

He said they had moved to Rhyl from the Midlands ‘determined to throw their weight around’.

Chad Paul Daniels, 20, of Balmoral Grove, Rhyl, was jailed for 12 years with an extended licence period of two years.

Brad Lee Bruce Daniels, 18, of East Parade, Rhyl, was handed a four and a half year prison sentence with an extended licence period of 18 months.

Judge Rees said it was a pity Roberts had not thought about her five-year-old daughter before offending, but her role in the operation was “significant” and he sentenced her to three years and four months.

Massey paid suppliers, took deliveries and labelled bottles, said Judge Rees and sentenced her to three years and four months.

Fletcher had played a “leading role” said Judge Rees. She had not enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and the judge acknowledged a series of deaths in her family and that she had shown true remorse. She was jailed for three years and four months.

He said Fisher had played a lesser role in accepting a limited number of parcels at her home. She was jailed for 18 months.

Joseph Taylor-Hannah, 28, of Huddersfield, admitted possession with intent to supply Class C drugs, and was given a nine month prison sentence suspended for 12 months and 200 hours of unpaid work.

Anholm was jailed for two years and eight months, Jones, who had promoted sales in Yorkshire was jailed for four years. Craig had allowed deliveries to his Shotton home and was given three years.

Maureen Jenkins, 68, Fairway, Sandycroft, admitted one charge of conspiracy to conceal criminal property. “You are 68 and not in good health and you should not have become involved at the behest of your son, David Jenkins.”

David Jenkins relied on his mother to provide an unsuspecting safe-house, said Judge Rees.

He said she “undoubtedly knew what was going on” and may have taken part out of misguided loyalty. She was jailed for 20 months.

Scott Watson, 36, of Sealand Avenue, Garden City , admitted conspiracy to contravene customs and to conceal criminal property. The judge said he must have had an idea of the scale of the operation and jailed him for four years and two months.

Colin Mark John Sullivan, 37, of The Highway, Hawarden , admitted conspiracy to conceal criminal property in relation to money but not drugs.

His joint purchase of a property in Church Street, Connah’s Quay, as a drop for parcels meant he had played a leading role in the conspiracy. He was jailed for two years and five months.

Joseph Hennigan

Joseph Hennigan, 32, was one of three masked robbers, dressed in paper overalls and armed with two crowbars, who targeted Barclays Bank’s Queensferry branch in Flintshire on Wednesday, April 18, Mold Crown Court heard.

They pulled up in front of the bank in a Nissan Juke and followed G4S security guard Paul Wilkinson into the bank at about 10.15am.

He was carrying a cash box containing £25,000 to deposit into a chute in the bank. He had already deposited four cash boxes at the bank.

The gang burst in and robbed the money box from Mr Wilkinson - terrifying customers and three female members of staff.

Hennigan, of no fixed abode, from Liverpool, who appeared by video-link from Altcourse Prison, pleaded guilty to robbing Paul Wilkinson of £25,000.

Blackmail plot gang

Larry James Morrison was jailed for life in June 2008 for kicking, punching and hitting a 17-year-old student in London.

Now 32, he was serving his prison term in Liverpool’s Altcourse prison last December when he linked up with another prisoner, Patryk Dziewiatkowski, 23, a Polish national living in Wrexham, to demand money from a Wrexham-based businessman.

The pair later recruited two other men, Morrison’s brother James Agyei-Burobey, 25, and Edwin Boakye, 31, both of Newham, London, to assist.

Morrison, Boakye and Agyei-Burobey had denied the charge, but were found guilty by a jury at Caernarfon Crown Court.

Morrison was handed a five-year jail term, which will start when he has served the minimum term before being eligible for parole for the murder charge.

Dziewiatkowski, who was jailed for 10 years in June 2016 for drugs supply offences, will spend four and a half years in prison, starting at the expiry of his current sentence.

Panashe Machengete and Dylan Uttley

Panashe Machengete, 20, of Stanford Street, Liverpool, admitted being concerned in supplying crack cocaine in July last year and possessing heroin with intent to supply. He was jailed for 34 months.

Dylan Uttley, also 20, who moved to Scotland and committed further drug offences, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of crack cocaine and possession with intent to supply. He was jailed for three years for the North Wales offences.

Judge Rhys Rowlands at Mold Crown Court said a year ago they had been at a flat and Uttley had £1,950. Crack cocaine and incriminating mobile phone texts were discovered.

David Michael Hughes

David Michael Hughes, originally from Llandudno , worked for the Inland Revenue in Colwyn Bay in the 1980s.

But he went on to set himself up as a tax consultant and was the driving force behind a swindle that saw millions of pounds of taxes deducted from construction workers’ wages through fraudulent payroll schemes.

He used offshore accounts and a network of bank accounts to carry out the elaborate criminal enterprise.

But before he could be arrested, in September 2011 globe-trotting Hughes went to Chile and Dubai before setting up home in Northern Cyprus. Because there’s no extradition treaty with Northern Cyprus, he couldn’t be apprehended.

It was more than six years later, in January 2018, that tax investigators were able to seize him, when they caught him getting off a flight from Turkey at Heathrow.

Today, Hughes, 53, was jailed for nine-and-a-half years at Southwark Crown Court. Three other men involved in the swindle were jailed in 2016 for a total of 19 years.

Mark Dixey

Mark Dixey’s crime spree started when he sent pornography to the force, implying it was from a local businessman who he’d never met, Mold Crown Court heard.

Dixey, 43, of Beaconsfield Road, Shotton , placed adverts in a local newsagent asking for a female babysitter aged between 14-17, claiming he was a local policewoman.

When a woman contacted him about the job, Dixey sent her offensive messages and images and then demanded £50,000 from her to stop.

He also posted a letter to a woman in Milton Keynes who he had no connection with, containing more offensive material and sent another woman obscene sex messages and tried to implicate somebody else as the offender.

Simon King, Lee Alexander and Maxine Knott

On the surface it appeared Simon King was running a business called Halcyon Furniture at a unit on the Bromfield Industrial Estate in Mold.

But when police raided the premises in January 2017 , a secret door led to a sophisticated cannabis farm with hydroponics and nearly 329 plants, estimated to be worth up to £355,000 on the street, Mold Crown Court heard.

The following investigation also found more than £806,000 had been made from the illegal drug operation, with the Mold unit a main source.

King, 47, of Rhydloes Mill, Llansilin, and accomplice Lee Alexander, 35, of Silkmoor Lane, Stafford, had admitted conspiring to produce and supply cannabis between December 2011 and January of last year and money laundering.

Maxine Knott, 50, also of Rhydloes Mill at Llansilin near Oswestry, who was King’s partner, had denied money laundering, but a jury convicted her yesterday after a two-day trial.

Judge Niclas Parry sentenced King, who had two previous convictions for fraud and possessing indecent images and had served a 30 month prison sentence, to six years and four months.

Alexander, who had previous convictions including criminal damage, handling stolen goods and had been handed a four year jail term for grievous bodily harm (GBH), was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

Saleema Mahmood, who defended Knott, said she was low risk and was concerned her four staff at the hair salon could lose their jobs if she went to prison and asked for a suspended sentence to be considered.

Wrexham drugs gang

Ringleader Marvin Frantzen, 31, of HMP Altcourse, was jailed for a total of 14 years and 10 months - six years on two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and eight years for kicking a Wrexham man’s door in and stabbing him six times in what was described as a “frenzied attack”.

He was also given a 10-month sentence to run consecutively for a police chase in November last year, in which he drove at speeds of up to 120mph through the North-West of England.

His lieutenant Shaun Coleman, 25 also of HMP Altcourse, was sent down for 11 years - six for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, plus another five for possessing a Walther pistol with one round of ammunition in the chamber.

Sandra Mathias, 40 of Greenfields, Rossett , Wrexham, was given a four-and-a-half year term for her part in the conspiracy, after the court heard she drove the gang around and insured cars for the outfit.

Lee Jones, 39 of Pisgah Hill, Broughton, Wrexham, was handed a two-year sentence suspended for 18 months for his part in the conspiracy in a separate sentencing. He was an addict who acted as a foot soldier and sold the drugs to other users.

Gang who flooded North Wales with 'staggering' amount of drugs

The 24 men and two women from Manchester, Liverpool, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno and Holyhead were part an organised crime gang whose web spread across the coastal strip of North Wales.

They were responsible for substances and cutting agents that combined could potentially flood the region with class A drugs, primarily cocaine, worth more than £2m.

Mold Crown Court had heard how gangs from Holyhead and Llandudno had joined forces with associates in the Rhyl and Colwyn Bay areas, to deal with suppliers in Manchester and Liverpool.

During the investigation the police recovered Class A drugs and a large amount of Benzocaine, commonly used to bulk out drugs in order to maximise the profit, indicating the scale of setup. The seizures have an estimated value of £2.7m.